Various artists: The Very Best of the Classic Experience
There are a number of pieces of music I'd love never to have to hear again - Pachelbel's Canon, for instance, or Grieg's Morning, or Albinoni's Adagio - and they're all, naturally, on this double CD of "popular favourites". But then there are a few of pieces I always enjoy hearing - Prokofiev's March of the Knights, Beethoven's Ode to Joy, the Arrival of the Queen of Sheba - and they're all here too, so does that make the glass half-full or half-empty? The recordings are indisputably classics, with such names as Yehudi Menuhin, King's College Choir, the Halle Orchestra, Mariss Jansons et al; and if you doubt the "popularity" of these compilations, check out the Lyric FM chart show on Saturdays, for it's crammed with them. Half-full? Buy it for your best friend. Half-empty? Buy it for your worst enemy.
Arminta Wallace